Fables for Children, Stories for Children, Natural Science Stories, Popular Education, Decembrists, Moral Tales

They got through with their supper. The woman cleared the table, and began to ask the stranger:

"Who are you?"

"I am a stranger."

"How did you get on the road?"

"I cannot tell."

"Has somebody robbed you?"

"God has punished me."

"And you were lying there naked?"

"Yes, I was lying naked, and freezing. Semén saw me, took pity on me, pulled off his caftan, put it on me, and told me to come here. And you have given me to eat and to drink, and have pitied me. The Lord will save you!"

Matréna got up, took from the window Semén's old shirt, the same that she had been patching, and gave it to the stranger; and she found a pair of trousers, and gave them to him.

"Here, take it! I see that you have no shirt. Put it on, and lie down wherever it pleases you, – on the hanging bed or on the oven."

The stranger took off the caftan, put on the shirt, and lay down on the hanging bed. Matréna put out the light, took the caftan, and climbed to where her husband was.

Matréna covered herself with the corner of the caftan, and she lay and could not sleep: the stranger would not leave her mind.

As she thought how he had eaten the last slice of bread and how there would be no bread for the morrow; as she thought how she had given him a shirt and a pair of trousers, she felt pretty bad; but when she thought of how he smiled, her heart was gladdened.

Matréna could not sleep for a long time, and she heard that Semén, too, was not sleeping; he kept pulling the caftan on himself.

"Semén!"

"What is it?"

"We have eaten up the last bread, and I have not set any. I do not know what to do for to-morrow. Maybe I had better ask Gossip Malánya for some."

"If we are alive we shall find something to eat."

The woman lay awhile and kept silence.

"He must be a good man. But why does he not tell about himself?"

"I suppose he cannot."

"Semén!"

"What?"

"We give, but why does nobody give to us?"

Semén did not know what to say. He only said, "Stop talking!" and turned over, and fell asleep.

V

In the morning Semén awoke. The children were asleep; his wife had gone to the neighbours to borrow some bread. The stranger of last night, in the old trousers and shirt, was alone, sitting on the bench and looking upward. And his face was brighter than on the day before.

And Semén said:

"Well, dear man, the belly begs for bread, and the naked body for clothes. We must earn our living. Can you work?"

"I do not know anything."

Semén wondered at him, and said:

"If only you are willing: people can learn anything."

"People work, and I, too, will work."

"What is your name?"

"Michael."

"Well, Mikháyla, you do not want to talk about yourself, – that is your business; but a man has to live. If you work as I order you, I will feed you."

"God save you, and I will learn. Show me what to do!"

Semén took the flax, put it on his fingers and began to make an end.

"It is not a hard thing to do, you see."

Mikháyla watched him, himself put the flax on his fingers, and made a thread end, as Semén had taught him.

Semén showed him how to wax it. Mikháyla again learned the way at once. The master showed him how to weld the bristle, and how to whet, and Mikháyla learned it all at once.

No matter what work Semén showed to him, he grasped it at once, and on the third day he began to sew as though he had done nothing else in all his life. He worked without unbending himself, ate little, between the periods of work kept silence, and all the time looked toward the sky. He did not go into the street, spoke no superfluous word, and did not jest or laugh.

Only once was he seen to smile, and that was the first evening, when the woman gave him a supper.

VI

Day was added to day, week to week, and the circle of a year went by. Mikháyla was living as before with Semén, and working. And the report spread about Semén's workman that nobody sewed a boot so neatly and so strongly as he. And people from all the surrounding country began to come to Semén for boots, and Semén's income began to grow.

One time, in the winter, Semén was sitting with Mikháyla and working, when a tróyka with bells stopped at the door. They looked through the window: the carriage had stopped opposite the hut, and a fine lad jumped down from the box and opened the carriage door. Out of the carriage stepped a gentleman in a fur coat. He came out of the carriage, walked toward Semén's house, and went on the porch. Up jumped Matréna and opened the door wide. The gentleman bent his head and entered the hut; he straightened himself up, almost struck the ceiling with his head, and took up a whole corner.

Semén got up, bowed to the gentleman, and wondered what he wanted. He had not seen such men. Semén himself was spare-ribbed, and Mikháyla was lean, and Matréna was as dry as a chip, while this one was like a man from another world: his face was red and blood-filled, his neck like a bull's, and altogether he looked as though cast in iron.

The gentleman puffed, took off his fur coat, seated himself on a bench, and said:

"Who is the master shoemaker?"

Semén stepped forward, and said:

"I, your Excellency."

The gentleman shouted to his lad:

"Oh, Fédka, let me have the material!"

The lad came running in and brought a bundle. The gentleman took it and put it on the table.

"Open it!" he said.

The lad opened it. The gentleman pointed to the material, and said to Semén:

"Listen now, shoemaker! Do you see the material?"

"I do," he said, "your Honour."

"Do you understand what kind of material this is?"

Semén felt of it, and said:

"It is good material."

"I should say it is! You, fool, have never seen such before. It is German material: it costs twenty roubles."

Semén was frightened, and he said:

"How could we have seen such?"

"That's it. Can you make me boots to fit my feet from this material?"

"I can, your Honour."

The gentleman shouted at him:

"That's it: you can. You must understand for whom you are working, and what material you have to work on. Make me a pair of boots that will wear a year without running down or ripping. If you can, undertake it and cut the material; if you cannot, do not undertake it and do not cut the material. I tell you in advance: if the boots wear off or rip before the year is over, I will put you into jail; if they do not wear off or rip for a year, I will give you ten roubles for the work."

Semén was frightened and did not know what to say. He looked at Mikháyla. He nudged him with his elbow, and said:

"Friend, what do you say?"

Mikháyla nodded to him: "Take the work!"

Semén took Mikháyla's advice and undertook to make a pair of boots that would not wear down or rip.

The gentleman shouted at his lad, told him to pull off the boot from his left foot, and stretched out his leg.

"Take the measure!"

Semén sewed together a piece of paper, ten inches in length, smoothed it out, knelt down, carefully wiped his hand on his apron so as not to soil the gentleman's stocking, and began to measure. He measured the sole, then the instep, and then the calf, but there the paper was not long enough. His leg at the calf was as thick as a log.

"Be sure and do not make them too tight in the boot-leg!"

Semén sewed up another piece to the strip. The gentleman sat and moved his toes in his stocking, and watched the people in the room. He caught sight of Mikháyla.

"Who is that man there?" he asked.

"That is my master workman, – he will make those boots."

"Remember," said the gentleman to Mikháyla, "remember! Make them so that they will wear a year."

Semén, too, looked at Mikháyla, and he saw that Mikháyla was not looking at the gentleman, but gazed at the corner, as though he saw some one there. Mikháyla looked and looked, suddenly smiled and shone bright.

"What makes you show your teeth, fool? You had better be sure and get the boots in time."

And Mikháyla said:

"They will be done in time."

"Exactly."

The gentleman put on his boot and his fur coat, and wrapped himself up, and went to the door. He forgot to bow down, and hit his head against the lintel.

The gentleman cursed awhile, and rubbed his head, and seated himself in the carriage, and drove away.

When the gentleman was gone, Semén said:

"He is mighty flinty! You can't kill him with a club. He has knocked out the lintel, but he himself took little harm."

And Matréna said:

"How can he help being smooth, with the life he leads? Even death will not touch such a sledge-hammer!"

VII

And Semén said to Mikháyla:

"To be sure, we have undertaken to do the work, if only we do not get into trouble! The material is costly, and the gentleman is cross. I hope we shall not make a blunder. Your eyes are sharper, and your hands are nimbler than mine, so take this measure! Cut the material, and I will put on the last stitches."

Mikháyla did not disobey him, but took the gentleman's material, spread it out on the table, doubled it, took the scissors, and began to cut.

Matréna came up and saw Mikháyla cutting, and was wondering at what he was doing. Matréna had become used to the shoemaker's trade, and she looked, and saw that Mikháyla was not cutting the material in shoemaker fashion, but in a round shape.

Matréna wanted to say something, but thought: "Perhaps I do not understand how boots have to be made for a gentleman; no doubt Mikháyla knows better, and I will not interfere."

Mikháyla cut the pair, and picked up the end, and began to sew, not in shoemaker fashion, with the two ends meeting, but with one end, like soft shoes.

Again Matréna marvelled, but did not interfere. And Mikháyla kept sewing and sewing. They began to eat their dinner, and Semén saw that Mikháyla had made a pair of soft shoes from the gentleman's material.

Semén heaved a sigh. "How is this?" he thought. "Mikháyla has lived with me a whole year, and has never made a mistake, and now he has made such trouble for me. The gentleman ordered boots with long boot-legs, and he has made soft shoes, without soles, and has spoiled the material. How shall I now straighten it out with the master? No such material can be found."

And he said to Mikháyla:

"What is this, dear man, that you have done? You have ruined me. The master has ordered boots, and see what you have made!"

He had just begun to scold Mikháyla, when there was a rattle at the door ring, – some one was knocking. They looked through the window: there was there a man on horseback, and he was tying up his horse. They opened the door: in came the same lad of that gentleman.

"Good day!"

"Good day, what do you wish?"

"The lady has sent me about the boots."

"What about the boots?"

"What about the boots? Our master does not need them. Our master has bid us live long."

"You don't say!"

"He had not yet reached home, when he died in his carriage. The carriage drove up to the house, and the servants came to help him out, but he lay as heavy as a bag, and was stiff and dead, and they had a hard time taking him out from the carriage. So the lady has sent me, saying: 'Tell the shoemaker that a gentleman came to see him, and ordered a pair of boots, and left the material for them; well, tell him that the boots are not wanted, but that he should use the leather at once for a pair of soft shoes. Wait until they make them, and bring them with you.' And so that is why I have come."

Mikháyla took the remnants of the material from the table, rolled them up, and took the soft shoes which he had made, and clapped them against each other, and wiped them off with his apron, and gave them to the lad. The lad took the soft shoes.

"Good-bye, masters, good luck to you!"

VIII

There passed another year, and a third, and Mikháyla was now living the sixth year with Semén. He was living as before. He went nowhere, did not speak an unnecessary word, and all that time had smiled but twice: once, when they gave him the supper, and the second time when the gentleman came. Semén did not get tired admiring his workman. He no longer asked him where he came from; he was only afraid that Mikháyla might leave him.

One day they were sitting at home. The housewife was putting the iron pots into the oven, and the children were running on the benches, and looking out of the window. Semén was sharpening his knives at one window, and Mikháyla was heeling a shoe at the other.

One of the little boys ran up to Mikháyla on the bench, leaned against his shoulder, and looked out of the window.

"Uncle Mikháyla, look there: a merchant woman is coming to us with some little girls. One of the girls is lame."

When the boy said that, Mikháyla threw down his work, turned to the window, and looked out into the street.

And Semén marvelled. Mikháyla had never before looked into the street, and now he had rushed to the window, and was gazing at something. Semén, too, looked out of the window: he saw, indeed, a woman who was walking over to his yard. She was well dressed, and led two little girls in fur coats and shawls. The girls looked one like the other, so that it was hard to tell them apart, only one had a maimed left leg, – she walked with a limp.

The woman walked up the porch to the vestibule, felt for the entrance, pulled at the latch, and opened the door. First she let the two girls in, and then entered herself.

"Good day, people!"

"You are welcome! What do you wish?"

The woman seated herself at the table. The girls pressed close to her knees: they were timid before the people.

"I want you to make some leather boots for the girls for the spring."

"Well, that can be done. We have not made such small shoes, but we can do it. We can make sharp-edged shoes, or turnover shoes on linen. Mikháyla is my master."

Semén looked around at Mikháyla, and he saw that Mikháyla had put away his work and was sitting and gazing at the girls.

And Semén marvelled at Mikháyla. Indeed, the girls were pretty: black-eyed, chubby, ruddy-faced, and the fur coats and shawls which they had on were fine; but still Semén could not make out why he was gazing at them as though they were friends of his.

Semén marvelled, and began to talk with the woman and to bargain. They came to an agreement, and he took the measures. The woman took the lame girl on her knees, and said:

"For this girl take two measures: make one shoe for the lame foot, and three for the sound foot. They have the same size of feet, exactly alike. They are twins."

Semén took the measure, and he said about the lame girl:

"What has made her lame? She is such a pretty girl. Was she born this way?"

"No, her mother crushed her."

Matréna broke in, – she wanted to know who the woman was, and whose the children were, and so she said:

"Are you not their mother?"

"I am not their mother, nor their kin, housewife! I am a stranger to them: I have adopted them."

"Not your children! How you care for them!"

"Why should I not care for them? I nursed them with my own breast. I had a child of my own, but God took him away. I did not care for him so much as I have cared for them."

"Whose are they, then?"

IX

The woman began to talk, and said:

"It was six years ago that these orphans lost their parents in one week: their father was buried on a Tuesday, and their mother died on Friday. These orphans were born three days after their father's death, and their mother did not live a day. At that time I was living with my husband in the village. We were their neighbours, our yard joining theirs. Their father was a lonely man; he worked in the forest. They dropped a tree on him, and it fell across his body and squeezed out his entrails. They had barely brought him home, when he gave up his soul to God, and that same week his wife bore twins, – these girls. The woman was poor and alone; she had neither old woman nor girl with her.

"Alone she bore them, and alone she died.

"I went in the morning to see my neighbour, but she, the dear woman, was already cold. As she died she fell on the girl, and wrenched her leg. The people came, and they washed and dressed her, and made a coffin, and buried her. All of them were good people. The girls were left alone. What was to be done with them? Of all the women I alone had a baby. I had been nursing my first-born boy for eight weeks. I took them for the time being to my house. The peasants gathered and thought and thought what to do with them, and they said to me: 'Márya, keep the girls awhile, and we will try and think what to do with them.' And I nursed the straight girl once, but the lame girl I would not nurse. I did not want her to live. But, I thought, why should the angelic soul go out, and so I pitied her, too. I began to nurse her, and so I raised my own and the two girls, all three of them with my own breasts. I was young and strong, and I had good food. And God gave me so much milk in my breasts that at times they overflowed. I would feed two of them, while the third would be waiting. When one rolled away, I took the third. And God granted that I should raise the three, but my own child I lost in the second year. And God has given me no other children. We began to earn more and more, and now we are living here with the merchant at the mill. The wages are big, and our living is good. I have no children, and how should I live if it were not for these girls? How can I help loving them? They are all the wax of my tapers that I have."

With one hand the woman pressed the lame girl to her side, and with the other she began to wipe off her tears.

And Matréna sighed, and said:

"Not in vain is the proverb: 'You can live without parents, but not without God.'"

And so they were talking among themselves, when suddenly the room was lighted as though by sheet lightning from the corner where sat Mikháyla. All looked at him, and they saw Mikháyla sitting with folded hands on his knees, and looking up, and smiling.

X

The woman went away with the girls, and Mikháyla got up from his bench. He lay down his work, took off his apron, bowed to the master and to the housewife, and said:

"Forgive me, people! God has forgiven me. You, too, should forgive me."

And the master and his wife saw a light coming from Mikháyla. And Semén got up, and bowed to Mikháyla, and said:

"I see, Mikháyla, you are not a simple man, and I cannot keep you, and must not beg you to remain. But tell me this: Why, when I found you and brought you home, were you gloomy, and when my wife gave you a supper, why did you smile at her and after that grow brighter? Later, when the gentleman ordered the boots, you smiled for the second time, and after that grew brighter, and now, when the woman brought her girls, you smiled for the third time, and grew entirely bright. Tell me, Mikháyla, why does such light come from you, and why did you smile three times?"

And Mikháyla said:

"The light comes from me, because I had been punished, and now God has forgiven me. And I smiled three times because I had to learn three words of God. And I have learned the three words: one word I learned when your wife took pity on me, and so I smiled for the first time. The second word I learned when the rich man ordered the boots, and then I smiled for the second time. And now, when I saw the girls, I learned the last, the third word, and I smiled for the third time."

And Semén said:

"Tell me, Mikháyla, for what did God punish you, and what are those words of God, that I may know them."

And Mikháyla said:

"God punished me for having disobeyed him. I was an angel in heaven, and I disobeyed God. I was an angel in heaven, and God sent me down to take the soul out of a woman. I flew down to the earth, and I saw the woman lying sick, and she had borne twins, – two girls. The girls were squirming near their mother, and she could not take them to her breasts. The woman saw me, and she knew that God had sent me for her soul. She wept, and said: 'Angel of God! My husband has just been buried, – he was killed by a tree in the forest. I have neither sister, nor aunt, nor granny, – there is no one to bring up my orphans, so do not take my soul! Let me raise my own children, and put them on their feet. Children cannot live without a father, without a mother.' And I listened to the mother, and placed one girl to her breast, and gave the other one into her hands, and rose up to the Lord in heaven. And I came before the Lord, and said: 'I cannot take the soul out of the mother in childbirth. The father was killed by a tree, the mother bore twins, and she begged me not to take the soul out of her, saying, Let me rear and bring up my children, and put them on their feet. Children cannot live without a father or mother. I did not take the soul out of the woman in childbirth.' And the Lord said: 'Go and take the soul out of the woman in childbirth! And you will learn three words: you will learn what there is in men, and what is not given to men, and what men live by. When you learn them, you will return to heaven.' I flew back to earth and took the soul out of the woman.

"The little ones fell away from the breasts. The dead body rolled over on the bed and crushed one of the girls, and wrenched her leg. I rose above the village and wanted to take the soul to God; but the wind caught me, and my wings fell flat; and dropped off, and the soul went by itself before God, and I fell near the road on the earth."

XI

And Semén and Matréna understood whom they had clothed and fed, and who had lived with them, and they wept for terror and for joy, and said the angel:

"I was left all alone in the field, and naked. I had not known before of human wants, neither of cold, nor of hunger, and I became a man. I was starved and chilled and did not know what to do. I saw in the field a chapel made for the Lord, and I went to God's chapel and wanted to hide myself in it. The chapel was locked, and I could not get in. And I seated myself behind the chapel, to protect myself against the wind. The evening came, I was hungry and chilled, and I ached all over. Suddenly I heard a man walking on the road; he was carrying a pair of boots and talking to himself. And I saw a mortal face, for the first time since I had become a man, and that face was terrible to me, and I turned away from it. And I heard the man talking to himself about how he might cover his body in the winter from the cold, and how he might feed his wife and children. And I thought: 'I am dying from hunger and cold, and here comes a man, who is thinking only of how to cover himself and his wife with a fur coat, and of how to feed his family. He cannot help me.' The man saw me; he frowned, and looked gloomier still, and passed by me. And I was in despair. Suddenly I heard the man coming back. I looked at him and did not recognize him: before that death had been in his face, and now he was revived, and in his face I saw God. He came up to me, and clothed me, and took me with him, and led me to his house. I came to his house, and a woman came out of the house and began to talk. The woman was more terrible yet than the man; the dead spirit was coming out of her mouth, and I could not breathe from the stench of death. She wanted to send me out into the cold, and I knew that she would die if she drove me out. And suddenly her husband reminded her of God. And the woman suddenly changed. And when she gave us to eat, and looked at us, I glanced at her: there was no longer death in her, – she was alive, and I recognized God in her.

"And I recalled God's first word: 'You will know what there is in men.' And I learned that there was love in men. And I rejoiced at it, because God had begun to reveal to me what He had promised, and I smiled for the first time. But I could not yet learn everything. I could not understand what was not given to men, and what men lived by.

"I began to live with you, and lived a year, and there came a man, to order a pair of boots, such as would wear a year, without ripping or turning. I looked at him, and suddenly I saw behind his shoulder my companion, the angel of death. None but me saw that angel; but I knew him, and I knew that the sun would not go down before the rich man's soul would be taken away. And I thought: 'The man is providing for a year, and does not know that he will not live until evening.' And I thought of God's second word: 'You will learn what is not given to men.'